and what you don't know
by chasingfireflies
Summary: She can't search the girl forever. Not with a murder on the pavement ten metres from them . / Alternate 2x07
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **refer to all previous if necessary. No. I don't own it.

**A/N. ****Quasi-AU Red Swan. Emma and Snow postpone their lovely wander to FTL for a more convenient time. Thus, we have a very Red Swan Wolfstime (potentially in three parts).**

* * *

_But if I could choose I'd let it hurt you_

/-\

There is no calm in the wake of the storm. Emma's learnt that, if anything, over the years. All of the stories, the poetic little ditties, the songs and the proverbs – they all talk about the calm, the lull, the peace before all hell breaks loose, but they never promise a concord after. There's nothing poetic about the aftermath. She's okay with that.

Storybrooke descends into chaos after it's hit by Hurricane Mister-fucking-Gold. Henry tells her she's broken the curse, Mary Margaret – _Snow_ – says it, Ruby whispers it to her when she drops in to the diner for a break and the brunette slides her a hot chocolate and a glass of scotch – 'on the house,' of course – over the counter. She's broken the curse. The storm is over.

She doesn't have the heart to point out the lack of happy endings.

Instead, she goes back to work. There is no lack of it. The Storybrooke personalities of every single resident seem to have some kind of storm damage claim to make – there's always something new to complain about, and it stacks up. That's the easy part, though. The mass identity crisis means that blood feuds and life debts suddenly seem to pop up all over the place. Stopping the mob from skinning Regina alive as soon as the curse breaks is the first altercation Emma has to intervene in, but it is far from the last. David offers to help her out – the responsible prince, the responsible parent that should-have-been. Still, it's not until the town's grocer tries to shank his neighbour as penance for a goat theft in a past life that she hands him the deputy badge and writes him onto the payroll.

She enjoys keeping busy – the town's growing list of problems leaves her exhausted at the end of every day, lets her sleep without ruminating on the sleeping curse that almost stole her son from her, or the dragon that used to lurk beneath the library. It prevents the overexposure to her sudden claim of family – limits the amount of pushing Snow can manage in a day. She gets to know James, rather than David Nolan, when he stands beside her through the long hours, dealing with the stupid little squabbles, the grudges and the bloody histories, guiding her through the parts she doesn't know, picking up when she stops but never overtaking. It is one of her better choices, because she doesn't understand this dual life the townsfolk are leading. She has never been anything other than Emma Swan, and she doesn't know what they're all going through. So when Regina gets her magic back and the townsfolk flock towards the town limit in a panic she can't talk them down – but David stands in the truck bed and loudly declares "we are both," and she stops seeing her roommate's indecisive lover and starts seeing the prince, the leader, the man she could think of as a father one day.

There is no calm after the storm. The chaos is only just beginning.

Henry bunks with them most nights, because Regina is high on the town's most wanted list (not to mention struggling with her practical Sith Lord background) and staying with her all the time is a safety hazard. He dreams about a girl in a burning room, and wakes most nights with tears in his eyes but a family waiting in the wings to support him. He goes to school with Snow, and she brings him home afterwards so he can spend his afternoons faux sword-fighting with the deputy sheriff. And Emma watches, and smiles, and worries about his nether world, and sometimes talks to Snow in small asides as if they're still just roommates and friends, and sometimes tells her figments of her past and her pains as if they're more than that. Family. Really. Warming up to the idea is slow, but not impossible.

It seems strange, the way their names change in her mind. Calling her roommate Mary Margaret just seems _wrong_ in some innate, quiet way, but calling her anything else is jarring. So it becomes "Snow", but never "mom". And sometimes "Mary Margaret" slips out, when they fall into old habits and Emma forgets, for a moment, that this isn't entirely the world she knows anymore (it always reminds her harshly enough). They are closer in some ways, and estranged in others, and Emma doesn't know how to handle that. So she focusses on other things – feuds, and grudges, dragging answers out of Regina and Gold – about the land they come from (still there somewhere, and waiting for their return, and if they get enough fairy dust they may even be able to go there), about Henry and what's happening to him – breaking up the work with diner visits and tired smiles at Ruby over the counter.

Even then, David becomes 'James', and Ruby becomes 'Red'. All in the little ways – there's something different in the way they smile, the way they stand. James is decisive and steadfast where David Nolan couldn't pick a path and stick with it. Ruby's self-confidence shifts, and now she's comfortable in her role, but not in her body. The overt flirting with much of the local populace goes, and Red stands stronger now, but more reclusive.

The little things only last so long. There is no calm after the storm, only a lull before the next one. And it comes with the phase of the moon.

/-\

It's a night of celebration.

She considers cutting in when she sees Billy cornering Red. The girl's been on edge for days, and while Red herself has never brought up the problem, Snow has. Not seriously, or anything – not to betray her friends secret, but just in passing, more to allay Emma's concerns than anything else. She hadn't mentioned until the third time Red forgot Emma's lunch order, and the second time the waitress spilt hot coffee on her lap. The clumsiness didn't fit with the intensity she was treating her job with, and Emma was more worried than annoyed by the erratic behaviour. Snow had simply said "Wolfstime is coming. She's getting anxious." The rest, Emma had figured out from James and from Henry's book.

It doesn't matter, really. Ruby was her friend before the curse broke, and Red is now. Sure, she apparently has a tendency to turn into an actual legitimate animal every month – but then, who _doesn't_ go a little crazy around the full moon? There's science about that stuff somewhere.

Still, she sees Billy approach the girl out of the shadows, and sees the discomfort on Red's face, and remembers the date and the moon cycle printed in the paper that morning, and she is about to cut in when Belle does it for her. Instead, she diverts her attention to Henry, seated alone in one of the booths with a mug in his hand that holds something far too familiar.

"Kiddo. Is that coffee?" He looks up at her guiltily, but he doesn't deny it – knows better, it seems, than to test her _super power_ as well as her sense of smell – and she manages a small, tired laugh when she drops down to the seat across from him. "Okay. Out with it."

"I'm… nervous," he says, and it draws her complete attention away from Red and Belle and Billy, pulls her focus solely on him. She loves him. He's her son. And he needs her now, in his quiet way. "I'm still having nightmares. And it's wolfstime tonight, right – Ruby's been acting… weird."

Not for the first time, Emma has to sigh at the perceptiveness of her kid. If nothing else, Regina taught him one good thing – because that wasn't from her. She was disillusioned at his age – all the foster kids were – but she was still naïve. Horridly so. All the way up until eighteen, when a pregnancy and a prison sentence put all of that to rest.

"Don't you worry about Red," she says lightly. "She's got enough people keeping an eye out and waiting to give her a hand-" _Or a crossbow bolt_, she thinks. "-nothing is going to go wrong. And you know I'll be right in the other room tonight if you need me. Snow and James, too. And your _other mom_ is only a phone call away."

He stares at her for a long moment, but the emphasis is too much. The smile breaks out. He can't stop it. He's never said so, but Emma knows he thinks it's funny, the way Emma has fallen into addressing Regina these days. It makes him happy that she acknowledges Regina's role in his life and doesn't grudge her for it. It makes him feel loved that she implies her own place in his little world – not as his friend, not as the woman who gave him up, not as the town saviour, but as his mom.

One of them, anyway.

He grins, and he laughs, and Emma wards off her own concerns about these dreams he's been having and Red's imminent dilemma, and reaches across to steal his coffee mug. "Now how about you go get us both a cocoa to celebrate this _wonderful_ step on the road toward a world without indoor plumbing."

She watches him leave the booth and make his way to the counter, eased for the moment, if nothing else. It has her smiling. At least, until the district attorney drops into the seat across from her, anyway. She hasn't dealt with him often enough to even consider him an acquaintance, truly, and she always associates him with the Kathryn Nolan case and his dedication to getting Mary Margaret convicted, so she is not particularly pleased to see him. Particularly considering James's assertion that this man was an ex-king in another life. And kind of a psycho.

"Can I help you, Mister Spencer?" she asks politely. She doesn't particularly like the man but she has enough enemies in her life without creating more. The way he sneers at her across the table tells her well enough – being polite isn't going to gain her any favours. Whatever this is about, it's not going to be pleasant.

"I have concerns about your deputy." Emma just crosses her arms over her chest and stares at him on the other side of the table, brow quirked for emphasis. "He's a liar. A shepherd pretending to be a prince. He wasn't fit to run the kingdom, and he's sure as hell not fit to run this town."

Well. If he doesn't _want_ a friendly conversation.

"And I might consider those concerns were he actually the one running it," Emma replies dryly, unmoved. She has spent weeks with James. The curious nature of his lineage has already been addressed. "Not to mention, if the rest of the town didn't disagree with you. Oh, and while we're at it, if we were living in the fifteenth century when who birthed you actually mattered, at all."

The sneer grows more pronounced, but Emma isn't particularly intimidated. She's faced dragons and seventeen years in the foster system – a failed king with the false life of a district attorney doesn't really faze her.

"Just like your father, I see," the man scowls, and Emma has the disjointed urge to reply with a quick _'which one?'_ because James may be her blood father but he's not the only dad she's ever had, and pissing this guy off just seems like a brilliant idea. She restrains it. "Defiant until the end. But never willing to deal the final blow. I'll expose you both for the weak, common blooded fools you are. James ruined me, once. I'll destroy you all."

Emma just stares at him for a long moment, brow furrowed. She doesn't mention the fact that while if James _is_ a shepherd, Snow is very much blue-blooded, and whether by marriage or by birth right all three of them have their royal entitlements – or would have, in the other world. Nor does she take the time to remind him that they do not live in that world any longer – kings and queens have no purpose here. There are laws, rights, principles that didn't exist wherever all these people came from. Albert Spencer is not the first to revert to archaic ideals, and he won't be the last, but every time Emma comes across one of these people she just can't help but wonder if everyone has truly gone batshit insane. There must be something in the water. There is a system now – democracy where the monarchy once stood. She's a sheriff, not a princess, and she will never claim otherwise.

But this isn't what she says to him, because she somehow knows he won't listen. No. She stands up and puts her hands, palms flat, on the table, leans down to look this stupid man straight in the eye and glowers. She won't be intimidated. She knows better.

"I am _not_ my father," she says instead, steely and quiet. "But I'd love to see you try."

It says something that she is more concerned about Belle, standing alone across the diner with a troubled expression, Ruby's absence, her deputy's sudden lack of presence, than this man, threatening her in a booth in the middle of a party. She's not sure _what_, exactly, that says, but she knows it definitely says _something_. Belle frowns when she approaches, but points her towards the kitchen without a word, obviously somewhat concerned. And, perhaps, a little more respectful of Red's privacy, if they're going to go there.

She makes her way out the back just in time to pick up the conversation about frozen lasagne and cages, and stops to lean on the counter just inside the door. Ruby pauses for a long moment when she sees her, and Emma understands – the fear, the secret, the judgement she expects. Ruby doesn't know that Emma knows – but then, she never really knew that Emma _didn't_ know either, so…

Emma allays it with a touch of her hand in passing, grabbing at Red's fingers for a fraction of a second after the brunette has put her stack of frozen lasagne on the counter and freed them. It's a wordless exchange – a glance from Red, Emma's bare hint of a smile that says 'it's okay' and the squeeze of her fingers that says the message is wholly received and very much appreciated. It doesn't do much else for her countenance, though – the brunette seems just as anxious as ever when James asks what the cage is for.

"Tonight's the first full moon since the curse broke. It's the first night of wolfstime," Red explains quickly, moving back towards James and the cage. Maybe more the latter. Anxiety, anxiety. Emma doesn't say anything – leaves it to James, her deputy with the lifetime of crazy world-with-magic experience, as she's learning to do. Better off stopping to learn than rushing in like an idiot – most of the time, anyway. There are exceptions.

"But I thought you learned to control the wolf in you ages ago?"

"Yeah, but – thanks to the curse I haven't _turned_ in twenty-eight years," Ruby says, and Emma doesn't understand the process, but there's a familiar theory. She hasn't stolen a car in eleven years – she's not sure she'd be so skilled these days, either. "I might be rusty. I can't let what happened last time, what-" Her head jerks a little to the side, almost involuntary, and Emma watches, wondering why it seems like that was a draw towards her. "-happened to Peter, happen to anyone else."

They talk about a hood, and Emma frowns but doesn't say anything. It's when the conversation turns to "_I know you_" and "_Snow trusts you_" that she really turns her head. It sounds like an old argument with new acoustics. And it doesn't halt Red's fears. The brunette tracks her way into the freezer-turned-cage, and Granny moves to shut the door, lock her in, but Emma is quicker.

"Just a second," she says gently. The old woman frowns back at her, but pauses nonetheless. It is Red that stares out at her with troubled eyes, exasperation, frustration, fear. The blonde just rolls her eyes and pushes off from the counter, pulling off her jacket as she goes. "You know, magic doesn't exactly work the way it's meant to here, right?" she asks dryly. "You might not turn at all. Hell, maybe you'll turn into a Chihuahua instead."

"_Emma_," comes the warning growl. Jokes are apparently a no-go with anxious-Red. Emma snorts.

"For the morning," she says, holding out her jacket. It's not the 'you don't need to be locked up' that she's pretty sure Red's expecting, or the 'let me put you out of our misery' that she fears. It's just a red leather jacket in an outstretched palm that says 'well, if being locked in a freezer floats your boat, who am I to argue?' It's just support. There's something in Red's eyes when she takes the jacket – deeper than Emma can really identify, but something that rings within her too. There are no words. Just that loaded gaze.

Then her hands are empty and her arms are bare. She steps back out of the way and they lock Red in the freezer, eagerly awaiting the morning.

/-\

Emma's not so sure she's surprised by the early morning call. The many years and the shitty people, and the newfound awareness of magic and all things incomprehensible, has taught her a lot about free thinking. Hope for the best but expect the worst, and never be loud about either.

She doesn't know if Granny calls James as well, if he hears her phone and assumes the worst, or if it's just that he's been up all night and waiting for it despite last night's bravado, but he is waiting in the kitchen with a travel mug of coffee for her when she rushes her way out, ready to go. The drive to the diner is quick and wordless, and tenser than usual. As sure as James is about Ruby's true nature, Emma can still see the trepidation in his posture. The fear. She, on the other hand – she's never lived this aftermath. She reserves her hopes. She knows not to make assumptions.

They're hardly out of the car before Granny barrels through the diner's door, urging them loudly to get back in the vehicle. And Emma _wants_ to – to follow that direction and take that path and find her friend, calm the inevitable storm of the morning. But while Red accepted her presence in the conversation last night, Emma's not too sure she's the first thing the waitress wants to see when waking up at her most vulnerable. Ruby is her friend, but Red is a whole other animal – _literally_. She's not sure they're on that level – or even that she's capable of recognising that level if she ever reaches it. Emma knows loyalty, not comfort. You learn what you live. And she's ill-equipped to be what Red needs this morning, whatever that is. She doesn't know. Just that it's not her.

"Find her," she directs simply, stepping out of the way and letting Granny take the passenger seat. "There's something I need to see."

The other two both frown, but Granny is antsy and eager to go and James seems to realise it's one of those times he should _just_ be the deputy with her and nothing else. Car doors slam and the engine turns over and then they're off, rolling on route to park nearer the woods. Emma just frowns, watching them go. When they've turned the corner she makes her way into the diner, caught by a morbid curiosity and that stupid familiar pull in her gut that says '_there's more to this story- find it_'. She hates that feeling. More often than not it gets her into trouble.

The diner's front door is completely intact, no damages, no problems. None of the tables or chairs have been moved. For a moment she wonders what the fuss is about – but then she finds her way out to the kitchen, the make-shift cage that failed and she sees it. Claw marks, jagged and cutting into smooth metal and reinforced walls. The door ripped from its hinges and left on the floor. Shelves destroyed.

Red was certainly no Chihuahua.

Emma has lived her life based on deductions, and this definitely isn't a list of hard ones. The cage _looks_ like it has been wrecked. But there is something vital _missing_, and something obvious _still there_. She doesn't know what the wolf did after getting out last night, but she does have her suspicions on how it did so in the first place. She isn't entirely satisfied with her investigation, but she calls it in lieu of catching up to Charming and finding Red. As familiar as she is with breaking and entering – vestiges of a past life she likes to forget she lived – and all the physics of general destruction, she's still not an expert. Emma's not sure she wants to make any real judgements without another set of eyes. There's too much at stake here. Ruby is involved.

The car parked across the road when she leaves the diner, locking the front door behind her, has her frowning. Black, with tinted windows, but even so she's pretty sure she knows it. It's been parked outside the station on the odd occasion. That car belongs to Albert Spencer. She would ask what he's doing parked across from the diner at this time of the morning, but the car starts up and rolls off before she's even made it down to the sidewalk. The pull in her gut racks up a notch.

She sidelines it when she gets the call about a double park by the cannery. Small time issues, small town folk. But she is the sheriff, and it's her job, and while the whole "_Red went running around as a giant wolf last night_" thing is kind of important, it's not as immediate. She dials Charming's number with a sigh.

"You find her?" she asks when he picks up, earns an affirmative. "Does she remember anything about getting out last night?"

Because god, wouldn't that make things easier. Put her fears to rest, allay her suspicions and her gut feelings. What she would give for casual happenstance right now. But no, he says, Red blacked out. This one's on Emma. Detective work. The whole shebang.

She hopes she's wrong about _everything_.

"Someone's double-parked over by the cannery. I'm walking. But pick me up on your way," she tells him quickly. She wants to mention the freezer, her new theories and her little observations, but she thinks it may be better shown, or said in person instead of over the phone. She doesn't want to hold him up too long – or whoever called in the parking issue. The townsfolk are generally pleasant enough, but they tend to get impatient sometimes. And then they get irritable. And then they get annoying. She thinks about that dark car with the tinted windows and the none-too-subtle threats of the night before and continues. "And keep Red with you. Until we know what happened last night, I don't want her off on her own."

"You think that's a good idea?"

"Best we can do. Your people haven't exactly shown their level-headed mediation tactics over the last few weeks, James. I don't want her running into someone she's unknowingly wronged. They'd just as likely stab her as sue her. Maybe _more_ likely." She pauses, grimaces at the thought. "If she's not happy about it, tell her that I _will_ arrest her."

"Don't you need a reason for that?" James asks, and despite the serious nature of the whole conversation he really just sounds amused, now.

"I'll make one up. Like it matters in this town, anyway."

He laughs and says he's on his way and hangs up, and Emma is about to put her phone away when it rings again.

"Snow?"

There is a vague panic in her mother's voice when it comes across the line, and for a moment Emma's heart drops into her stomach. _This is it_, she thinks, _this is what Red's afraid of_. But then Snow actually explains, and Emma has to think that this is maybe actually _worse_ than that. Henry's dreams are burning him – _literally_.

"I think I know the cause, but the burns are more than I ever experienced after my curse," Snow says. Emma wants to go home – this is her _son_, she should _be there_ – but there are other duties to handle, and she is not the only one capable of looking after Henry, nor the only one entitled. "I'm not sure what to do."

"I'll call Regina," Emma says reluctantly. "No matter how much you hate each other, she's still his mother too. And better versed in sleeping curses, if that's what this is. There's nothing I want more than to come home and deal with this, but she can, and we have other problems. Red got out last night."

"I'm sure she didn't do anything," Snow replies, barely an ounce of doubt in her voice (but still an ounce, nonetheless). Emma frowns.

"I'd bet on it," Emma tells her. "She's not the one I'm worried about." She remembers dark eyes and a dangerous scowl and promising words, and a dark car parked across the road. "How much can you tell me about Albert Spencer?"

/-\

James catches her three streets over from the cannery, pulling up beside her in the police cruiser and waiting impatiently for her to get in. Widow Lucas doesn't move from the front passenger seat, and Emma is too old and too tired and too thoughtful to care. Sliding into the back is an idle action, and taking Red's hand across the vacant space between them is even more so.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" James asks her, glancing in the rear-view mirror in hopes of an answer, but Emma just frowns, ignoring the way Red seems to withdraw as far away from her as she can in the back seat, both cringing and glowering but never retracting her hand. Once, she knows, Ruby looked for more in her life than what she had. And now, Red fears what she found. What it means for her. What it means for Emma, who notes her jacket, slightly dirtied from its night out in the woods on Red but hardly left worse for wear. Who examines Red's mostly clean hands and wonders how they're capable of gouging claw marks into steel. Magic, she guesses. It's plausible.

But ripping that reinforced door right from its hinges? She's not so sure.

"Maybe," she tells him, distracted by suspicions and dark cars and gut feelings. It isn't even minutes before the car pulls up to a stop again and Emma releases Red's hand, trusting her friend to keep herself together for a little while longer.

"That's Billy's truck," Red says when she has her hand back, opening the door to get out – and there goes any and all thoughts of asking the girl to stay in the car. Emma sighs and follows suit.

"Great!" James exclaims. "Who do we call to tow a tow truck?" It's somewhere between exasperated and slightly joking, and Emma nearly smiles as she comes up beside him. Nearly. But then Red's freezing up again with a cautious inhale. "What is it, Ruby? What's wrong?"

"I smell blood."

It's the red alert. Charming is going straight for the truck's cab, the driver's side door, looking for clues, and Granny is stalking off down the other side of the truck, following scents and the rest of her senses. Emma, though – Emma keeps her eyes on Ruby, keeps herself three steps behind and follows the girl wherever she goes. She is not left disappointed.

She can hear Granny and James by the truck when they find what they're looking for – Billy's torso, she presumes, because suddenly enough she's stuck staring at the bloody waist, the guts and gore above the stiff legs, jeans and work boots still intact, strung out on display over the bin edge. Red is screaming, a rough, tortured sound, and Emma is slower to react than she would specifically like to be. Something about blood and entrails does that to a person.

"It was the wolf," Red says, "It was _me_."

She is pending dissolution into sobs and hysteria, and Emma isn't good with words. She never has been. So she does the best she can with what she has – the best of all bad habits – and reaches out to grip Red's arm. More force than usual – not for a monster, or a killer, or an animal, because Red is none of those things, but for a horrified bystander, a shocked friend. Her grip is harder for the purpose of detaining, but it is not driven by law or legal duty; it's concern. She seizes Red's arms, arrests her gazes, directs her away from Billy's lower half and back towards the cruiser. Red seems caught between fight and forfeit. She quietens down after the minutes pass, tearful but keeping a lid on the hysterics.

"Are you going to arrest me, Emma?"

And despite the tears, the shaking body, the tense set shoulders and the horror, her quiet words are all too easy to hear. Emma just tilts her head, yanking Ruby around none-too-gently and pressing her back against the side of the car with firm hands and dark eyes. She comes to her own conclusions when she meet's Red's gaze. She's always been good at that – perception and deduction, invasive guessing games. It's how she tells the liars from the honest. She wonders if anyone has ever looked at Red before – just _looked_ – when Wolfstime comes and the burden drags along with it. She wonders if she's the only one to _see_. She's quiet when she asks, and Red stares back at her, all storm beneath the surface, tear tracks and fear.

"Is that what you want?"

It's not a confirmation, it's a caution. Emma's not sure who grasps it least – her, whose lips parted for the words, or Red, who furrows her brow above her tears and stands motionless beneath Emma's hands, stiff on her shoulders. She doesn't supply answers – probably doesn't have them – and Emma resigns herself. She can't search the girl forever. Not with a murder on the pavement ten metres from them.

The idea of looking again, at what's left of Billy's body, makes her stomach roil, but it's kind of her job. Sort of. God, she wishes it wasn't. Still, she waits until Charming comes over before letting Red go at all. Only when he's close enough to grab the brunette if, for whatever reason, she decides to make a run for it, does she actually start to move away. She doesn't want to arrest Red, particularly, but she doesn't trust the rest of the town to leave this alone, whatever _this_ turns out to be. If it comes down to it – to seizure versus her friend's personal safety – Emma _will_ pull the handcuffs. Better her good graces than her life.

She pauses Granny before the sheet can be pulled over Billy's torso and swallows back the bile. This isn't what she had in mind for the morning – at _all_.

"Red's kills in the past," she starts quietly, knowing that the old woman is close enough to hear. "Did she display them like this?"

"What?"

"Half hanging out of a garbage bin, metres and hardly a blood trail in between?" Emma asks, glancing up at Granny, at the curious expression, the perturbed purse of her lips.

The inconsistencies lurk at the back of her mind, all the way from the freezer door at Granny's to the mutilated body of the mechanic in front of her. Red's behaviour is avid resignation, too quick to believe the worst – not what Emma knows of her. But Emma does know how to _look_ at things, look at the facts, catalogue and derive. Add and subtract. Things don't add up in her head just yet, and somehow she feels like she knows where this is all meant to go, but she doesn't quite know how to get there. She kind of wants to be sick, lurking around the blood, the halved body of someone she's met a few times but has never really known. But she needs to ask. She needs to know.

"How do wolves kill, Widow?" she asks. "How does Red kill?"

Granny looks like she wants to respond, but Red and Charming are arguing over by the car, and the townsfolk are trickling on to the scene. Emma glances at Billy's torso one last time, grimaces and pulls the sheet back over him, and then stands to follow Widow back towards the car.

"I know who you really _are_, Ruby – even if you've lost sight of it," she hears her deputy saying, loud and with far too much conviction. Emma scowls. This is the David Nolan in him, struggling to move past his previous lack of faith when the woman he loved was put in a similar situation. Too similar. Too much. And it's _too late_ for these words – whether he's directing them at Ruby, or Red, or himself. It's too late, and too much has happened, and the doubts have all crept in to take hold.

"Lock me up," Red tells them, and that's all Emma needs. She knows how this is going to go. James can argue as much as he wants, but Red needs to be appeased, just for a little while. "The freezer couldn't hold me, maybe a jail cell will. I don't need to be protected from other people, David – other people need to be protected from me."

James looks like he wants to argue, but Emma shakes her head at him and waits until Red has been ushered back into the car.

"She didn't _do_ this, Emma," he tells her vehemently when the door is closed, as if the thin wall of glass and metal will stop Red and her super senses from hearing them. And Emma knows – Emma _knows_ that, somehow. She doesn't have a doubt about it, really – Red _didn't_ do this, and it's obvious in Granny's second thoughts when she asks the hard questions, stacking up in the facts and little observations. Red didn't do this – didn't kill the mechanic, didn't miraculously bust out of her cage in the middle of the night to terrorise the town, even if it looks that way. Emma knows. She thinks Red knows too.

But telling her that, saying that it's not her fault and it has nothing to do with her, isn't going to help, regardless of how true it may or may not be. They can say what they want, but it has no effect – Red will hear them, but she won't listen. She doesn't _want_ to.

"Let me worry about Red," she says. "You can worry about the crime scene."

He's her argumentative, loyal father, yes – but he's also her deputy, so he does as he's told.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Deux. Sorry, I was busy, and lazy, and I forgot about things.**

* * *

The car ride is quiet until they get to the diner. Granny wants to go over the freezer again, apparently encouraged by Emma's suspicious nature – poke around with a little more intensity and a little less of a rush about her. Afterwards, she's volunteered to pick James back up when he's done supervising the crime scene by the cannery. And in the meantime, Emma will take Red back to the station and lock her up, as she's asked for. Without Charming in the car to argue about Red's better nature, or Granny to mutter curses and the rest of her generally unhappy commentary, the start of the car ride is silent. But there are things that Emma needs to know.

"What happened to Peter?"

There is a long moment where the only sound from the back seat is an uncomfortable shift of fabric, and Emma almost thinks she is going to get the answer she's waiting for – a cool 'I don't want to talk about that', or no answer at all.

"I tore him apart," Red says instead, and Emma's heart sinks at her tone. The sheriff understands – she might be the only one who does, in a strange way. It's the same tone she used to take, warning away her social workers and school councillors and first day trying-too-hard friends. It's the tone of someone trying to convince others of the worst in them, trying to convince themselves. There is more at work here than Billy's murder and what that means for her as the Sheriff, or James, as her father, or Red, as the girl who turns into a wolf once a month. There is more than just the facts and the obvious. "I loved him, and I ripped him to pieces, because that's what the beast in me _does_, Emma."

"Did you really?" Emma asks lowly, glancing at the younger woman in the rear view mirror, far less affected than Red obviously expects. The brunette bristles.

"Kill him? _Yes_."

"No. _Love_ him."

She sees Red open her mouth and pause, words caught in her throat – but then Emma's eyes are back on the road ahead of her, because she _is_ driving, and not trying to get them killed on the road.

"I – of course I did," Red says eventually, but the strength in her voice is wavering, like it's a little too much to think about and she's not entirely sure. Emma wonders if anyone's ever actually asked her about it before. She shrugs.

"If you say so," she says, and she thinks about a magic wardrobe and seventeen years in the foster system, a keychain and a bag of stolen watches, a stint in prison, a set of adoption papers laid out on the table in front of her, waiting to take her child away from her forever. "We often hurt the ones we love." And quieter. "I'm not so sure we kill them."

They make it maybe another block before Red speaks again, more reserved but apparently still just as determined to demonise herself. Emma would huff and give up if it were anyone else – but Red means too much, somehow.

"I am a _killer_, Emma."

The blonde rolls her eyes. Well. If she wants to keep playing this game.

"Do you think I'm a criminal?"

Emma takes pains not to talk about her past, because she likes to pretend a lot of it never happened. She has a history of characteristic naivety and stupid mistakes, and while they eventually led her to become something else, she doesn't miss the old days – or particularly want to be associated with them. Red seems to be the complete opposite – rooting around for her past faults and bringing them to the foreground of her present life.

"What? No. Of course not."

"But I was in jail, right," Emma argues dryly. Red is about to have more insight into her life than pretty much anyone else in Storybrooke, and she's probably not even going to appreciate it. Not for a while yet, anyway. "Arrested for theft. I stole things, Red. It happened. I did it. I did a _lot_ of it. So I must be a criminal, right?"

"Emma, I don't –"

"Or does my juvenile delinquency not count now. Is that it?"

"What – no, Emma, it's important, but, I know who you _are_ now," she says, ever so avidly, and the blonde scoffs. She wonders if Red realises just how much she sounds like James in this moment. "And it's not who you _were_."

"Why?" she asks.

"What?"

"_Why_, I said. Why is that not who I am now?"

"You grew up!" Red says, lurching forward in her seat as if putting herself closer to Emma will get the point across with a little more force. "You _changed_, Emma, you made-"

"-choices?" the blonde cuts in, and watches in the rear view mirror as the droll comprehension crosses Red's face. She almost wants to laugh. "Snow and James are my parents, but I've never been a princess. I gave birth to Henry, but I was never a _mother_ until I came here. And apparently, even though I used to steal things, I'm not a thief anymore."

"…It's not the same thing."

'_The hell it's not,'_ she wants to say. _'If you're still a killer then I'm still a criminal. If you can't be saved, then neither can I.'_ But she doesn't. Red doesn't want to hear about redemption and change, Red doesn't _need_ to know about her own self-doubt. So Emma just snorts and keeps her eyes on the road. They don't talk after that, really.

Snow is waiting for them at the station, all anxiety and quiet apologies. "I left Henry with Regina," she says, pulling Henry's story book out of her bag and handing it over gingerly. "He sent the book, like you wanted. I wouldn't trust Regina with much, but with Henry – I mean, she's his mother. And Red needs me."

Emma has her own opinions of _what Red needs_, but she doesn't protest. Snow won't listen – stubbornness is a family trait, apparently.

"You can lock her in when she's ready," Emma says, handing over the cell keys and shuffling off towards her office with a frown. Interrupting her mother when she's comforting her best friend isn't high on her list of things to do – she had heard enough of "_I know you_" and "_you wouldn't do this_" to last a lifetime long before she even _met_ Red – before she moved to Storybrooke, even – and she doesn't need to hear any more of it now. No, she _needs_ proof, more than faith. Hard evidence. The kind of stuff you can convict for.

Snow can fret over the brunette waitress or the brown wolf or whatever she wants to be this week, and Emma can be the Sheriff and do her job and be clinical and rough and follow her gut and ignore her heart. She's good at that.

She leaves the door open behind her for safety's sake – lord knows how many people like to track their way in and out of her station every day to talk shit or whine, and occasionally even report actual legitimate issues. But she ignores Snow's hushed tones, the probable reassuring words she's spouting, and focusses instead on her computer.

_Wolves_, she types, and spins around in her chair while the window loads to go through her filing cabinets. _Albert Spencer_, she thinks as she tracks through her records, pulls a file and drops it on the desk. "_King George"_, she mutters when she flips Henry's book open.

She wonders how different life would be if she'd ever studied this much in school.

She doesn't pay so much attention to the time, but eventually reading about how wolves kill and all the lovely, archaic backstory of Albert Spencer-slash-King George gives her the worst urge for a coffee – and a glass of straight whiskey, but it really isn't the best time for that. The coffee machine in the hall calls to her, and she sighs and stretches her legs, walking out and queuing three cups. Snow is just locking Red in when she returns, looking oh so tragic while she turns the key, and Emma hands her one of the Styrofoam cups wordlessly before passing Red's through the bars.

"Thank you, Emma," comes the quiet reply, but Red doesn't even try to look her in the eyes and Emma snorts a little.

"Thank me later," she says, but she doesn't expand on why. She doesn't mention Albert Spencer. Red is only half her friend at the moment – the half that gets a Styrofoam cup of coffee without asking, or a blanket for the cool afternoon behind bars, but not the half that gets senseless speeches on morale and blind faith and _potential other avenues_. She's pretty sure that Spencer had something to do with the gigantic shitstorm currently pending in the wings, but until she has proof she doesn't want to say anything – she knows how that's gone in the past, with Regina and her shovel, and she won't make that mistake twice. _Close to the chest, Emma_.

And on top of all of that, what she seems to understand more than anyone else – Red doesn't _want_ to be consoled. Words, promises, don't matter now.

Snow missed that memo.

"Yeah, in the morning – when we've found who really killed Billy."

"You already have." Well, think of the devil and he shall appear, apparently. Albert Spencer, right on time. If Emma weren't suspicious before she certainly would be now. "It's _that_ thing. The she-wolf."

She stares at him for a long moment before answering, fighting down the impulse to make some droll, tasteless comment about ex-kings and privacy, trespassing and arrest.

"And do you have proof of this?" she asks instead, dry and unimpressed, because she's not so sure that _she_ has proof of anything either. Everything is circumstantial at the moment – there are missing pieces, irregularities. It looks like a mess of coincidences and bad timing, or potentially bad manufacturing. She's betting on bad manufacturing. If Albert Spencer has started this frame job, she wants to know which part he's hoping will stick.

"It seems to me that you're allowing your emotions to cloud your judgement," the DA says. Emma wonders how closely he's really been watching if he thinks _she's _the emotional one here. He has a good poker face, she'll admit, but there's something in his expression, something in his eyes that's just so _hollow_. Red talks a big game about being a monster, Emma thinks, but she has to wonder if the woman has ever looked at one – one like Spencer, all calculation and ice, and nothing underneath.

Snow bristles somewhere behind her, and Red stands in her cell and says "leave her alone," but she's not a wolf, she's a human being behind bars and hardly intimidating, and Emma ignores her. So does Albert Spencer.

"You're protecting your friend at the peril of everyone else. I knew you'd slip up, outlander. It was only a matter of time."

"Uh-huh." Non-committal. She wants to know where he's going with this.

"Hand her over to me and we'll let the townspeople decide her fate."

Her eyes narrow. She's spent weeks now dealing with the _townspeople_ and their stupid feuds and their archaic ideas of justice and penance – morons like Spencer who just can't grasp the fact that they have left their world behind. The way they think is not the way the world works. Someday soon she'll find a way of reminding them all of that.

"Did you want that order with or without a print-out of every human rights law applicable in the Northern Hemisphere?" she asks dryly.

"She's not _human_!"

"Animal welfare law, then, if you're going to be picky," Emma says. She crosses her arms over her chest and stares him down. "I'm not handing anyone over to you, because you're further proving yourself to be clinically insane."

"This town is bigger than you think. If I start telling people that you're putting their lives in danger to protect your own interests you'll have a mutiny on your hands."

Emma can't help it. She snorts.

"I've seen everything that you've done to these people," she says. "All the stories, all the lies – it's all in August's book. You're never going to be able to paint yourself the hero, Spencer." He's close to fuming – she can see it. "Now, you will kindly remove yourself from the premises – or I will arrest you for trespassing."

"The police station is public property."

"Not when the Sheriff has asked you to leave it."

If his ears could literally steam as he walked out the door, they probably would. Emma glares after him until he's gone.

"Emma-"

"Tell James I need to speak with him when he gets in," she interrupts quickly, all without looking over her shoulder. She trudges back to her office without another word. Red is her friend, and now her ward, but she is also a suspect – and until Emma can prove her innocent, that's how things need to stay. She spends twenty minutes filling out forms before James strides into her office, Widow following on his heels. She looks at them both over her desk and leans back in her chair.

"Cannery scene is taken care of," James tells her. "Local CSU has handled it, the body is down in the morgue. All legal and on the books, like you wanted."

He sounds more than a little miffed about that, like he doubts it's the right decision. Emma frowns at him. That is the David Nolan in him, she thinks – who doubts his every action and second-guesses his friends. Who would consider doing what is right for the people around him without being morally right at all. He'll remember himself later.

"I had another look at the diner," Widow says when Emma looks her way. "You were right about the... _discrepancies_. The hinges were hardly ripped from the wall. It looked like they'd been loosened first. And there's a scent there, in the kitchen. I hardly picked it up, but it was – unfamiliar."

"Did you smell it anywhere else?"

"The Cannery, beneath the blood, barely," Widow says. "And here in the station."

Emma sighs, but sits forward in her chair, rifling through the papers on her desk and finding one of her more recent (twenty minutes fresh from the printer) forms. It's almost entirely filled out, and she scrawls in the last of it while James talks.

"What's going on, Emma?"

"I need you," she starts, folding the paper and sliding it across the table, "to take this down to the courthouse. Scrounge up Judge Parr. I need him to sign off on a warrant. I settled a family dispute for him last week on rather favourable terms and he owes me a favour – remind him of that if he argues."

James takes the form, unfolds it and scans it through, and glowers at her across the counter. "Spencer? _Why_? You don't have any conclusive evidence."

"But I do have aggressive, threatening behaviour to base my concerns off of," she tells him dryly. "He was at the diner last night, and he was here today. If I'm wrong, I'll find nothing, and then so be it. We'll pile a little more dirt on my name and call it a day. But you're _going_ to get me that warrant."

"And what are you going to be doing?"

"Making alternative arrangements for the night," Emma tells him dryly. "Red thinks a jail cell is going to save the rest of the town from her. I don't think it's fit to save her from the rest of the town."

/-\

All in all, Emma thinks, Belle agrees quite readily.

"There were no bite marks on Billy's body," Widow tells the librarian initially, "no claw marks. It looked like more of a hack job than an animal attack, in hindsight. Not like her old kills. Back then, there was never really any doubt." It's an odd method of convincing someone, really – bringing up the old kills to cast doubt on the new one. To make letting a potentially dangerous animal into your home seem less risky. Belle just nods, though, like it's not weird at all.

"I've got some shackles," the librarian says. Emma doesn't even bother to ask. "Hallway closet. Should hold up through her phasing."

Widow ambles off to find them, and Emma can hear Snow having a chat with the young werewolf in Belle's bedroom, where they've shoved her out of the way, trying to convince her that nothing is wrong in the world, like it's just another day. Belle is quiet when she gets Emma's attention.

"Do you think she did it?" the brunette asks, slightly morose and genuinely curious.

"No," she says. "But I think she _could_."

It's the same distinction that she thinks Spencer is banking on – what Red _has_ done and what she is _capable_ of doing, and the way they have blurred together in the past. She sighs and links her fingers together to crack her knuckles while Belle frowns thoughtfully.

"Keep your phone on you," the blonde says. "All night. Any problems, call my cell."

When she has the affirmative response she steps towards the bedroom. Snow looks at her when she walks in, cutting off whatever semi-motivational discussion she's attempting to have with her werewolf friend and waiting to hear whatever Emma wants to say to her.

"Could you get home? As much as I actually trust Regina with him, I don't really want her to be the only one around if Henry has another nightmare tonight," the blonde says calmly. Regina's a little crazy sometimes, morally questionable at best, but she has no doubts that the woman has their son's best interests at heart _all the time_. She knows Regina will never do anything to hurt Henry, least of all intentionally – but sometimes, these days, _Henry_ forgets that. He loves Regina, but he's forgotten how to trust her.

"Red needs me h-"

"_I_ need you," Emma cuts in, harder this time, a flash of steel in her gaze, "to go home and look after Henry."

Snow is nothing if not loyal, so there's that. Her bond with Red is disconcerting sometimes – Emma has only ever known them as the school teacher and the waitress from Storybrooke who sometimes went out for girls nights together, but they lived a whole other life in a fairytale that sometimes looked more like a horror story, with no one to rely on but each other. Snow looks at Red and sees her best friend, almost sister-figure, comrade in arms. Family.

Emma has known her for much less of her life. Months. And while she has the title of 'daughter' beneath her name, and Snow sometimes looks at her with stars in her eyes, like she means the world, it is a far less comfortable connection than Snow's with Red. Sometimes, Snow regards her in a certain way, and for a moment Emma Swan can convince herself that here is the mother she always wanted, who will always put her first, who will always _love her more_. Others, like now, when the short-haired brunette looks to be a second away from arguing, some things are made all too clear – she was Mary Margaret's friend, not Snow's, and while she carries relation by blood and wishful thinking, Red has _years_ on her. She is a wish in Snow's life, a loss, not an instalment.

They stare at each other for a moment, and Snow is stubborn, but Emma is too. She wins.

"You call me the _second_ something goes wrong," Snow warns – and there's the concerned mother, all in the stern tone, as well as the concerned friend. She glances at Red beside her, suddenly awkward. "Not that anything _will_ go wrong. If. _If_ something goes wrong."

Emma just nods, and waits while her mother hugs their friend, whispers some last parting declaration of confidence, before moving over to the blonde. She finds herself caught in something of a bear hug all too suddenly.

"You look after her," Snow whispers, and Emma is still for a moment before she nods. "And be careful."

And then Snow is gone. It is Emma and Red, alone again, sharing space with silence in between them. Emma shuts the door and leans back against it. Red frowns and the blonde eyes her warily.

"I heard what you said to Belle," Red says after a long moment. "What you think."

"You said it yourself," Emma tells her. "You ripped your boyfriend apart. You're capable of it. What else am I supposed to think?"

Red just stares at her, lips parting fractionally, but no words falling out. She collects herself. "Why defend me against Spencer, then? I mean, if you think I'm a _monster_-"

"We're defined by our choices," the blonde interrupts. She doesn't say it particularly loudly – she doesn't need to. Red can hear. She probably hears everything – whatever conversation Granny is having with Belle in the living room, the cars going past out on the street, a door slamming three blocks over. It is that new cautionary awareness keeping a limit on her volume and her tone – that all is not as she has grown to know, that Red is so much more than Ruby. There is magic at work, as ever, complications, new facts, new thoughts. Red's old senses.

Ruby though – Ruby, who was Emma's friend first, is the kind to move forward, cover the ground, hear those tones closer. Emma can see it in her eyes – two different lives, different ways of thinking. It wars with her fear – of herself, of what she can do. Her nature, her wolf. The girl takes a few steps to cross the room, not close enough to crowd, but enough to appease whatever it is that bubbles up beneath her skin. The blonde's gaze diverts – straight down and away from those curious eyes.

"Emma?"

Emma doesn't _need_ the prompting. Not really. She doesn't like to talk about the past, but sometimes she kind of has to. Maybe it's about time. She crosses her arms over her chest and swallows thickly before she continues.

"It's the first thing you learn in the foster system," Emma tells her after a moment, but she doesn't move her eyes from the floor. "Not how sparingly you should give out your trust, our how jealously you should guard your heart – that comes later. With the third school and the fourth family placement, and the foster father that eventually raises his hand at you."

Red flinches, but Emma only catches it in her peripherals. The brunette's body is taut, eyes locked on her. Attentive. She would be. Everyone knows Emma doesn't talk about her childhood. Then again, she never really had much of one. She lives in the here-and-now, and everyone knows it, and Emma has found over the years, that if she projects enough bluster, no one ever even thinks hard enough to ask more. Her history remains just that – _history_ – even to her _mother_.

"The first thing you learn?" Emma says, and she forces her gaze back up from the floor. Red must be expecting some kind of relatable 'moral-of-the-story' kind of tale, an 'I overcame adversity, so too can you' deal. She's had pep talks all day from the Charmings, from Granny, and she'll probably get one from Belle before sunset, lord knows – but all the 'I know you's and 'you're truly good inside's will only get someone so far if they can't see it themselves, and that's not Emma's plan. "The other kids in the home couldn't care less what your last name is, or what story you've got tied to it. They just want to know whether you'll lift the cash from your Director's drawer and join them on the next bus out of town. Your social worker doesn't care if you were born in Maine or dumped there like _trash_ on the side of the road, as long as you _choose_ to behave, so they can sell you off on the first nice-looking family that comes along and move on. And most of your foster families – they don't give a damn who your real parents were, or-" She pauses and exhales, and it almost sounds like a laughing breath, dry and flat and morbid. "-who _you_ are. Doesn't matter. You're just a meal ticket. But god, they like you better if you're never a problem."

She sneers. There are reasons Emma doesn't bring up her past, there are things she likes to forget. She forces her arms down to her sides, steels herself. She is stone, now. Not some stupid little kid in a new town and a new school, waiting to get chucked out on her ass again. She's more than that now. She's more than she was then. And the moment that this was about her, that Red could pretend it was all about Emma and not about her own shitty situation, is gone.

"You are defined by your choices, Red. Not by your blood. Not by your titles."

There is a long pause. Red says nothing. She probably doesn't entirely understand what she is being told – what it means to Emma, how it pertains to _her_. What is the point, really – where is the part that _sticks_? The silence seems to stretch out – Red trying to figure out what to say and Emma just waiting. But really, it's not long at all.

"I could stand here talking until my face turns blue," Emma grumbles, shakes her head, dull-toned, and stares at Red. Harsh, hard, calculating. Sad. "Keep telling you what I see in you. Snow can tell you how good you are and Belle can plead to your better nature, and Charming can reassure you as much as he wants – and Albert Spencer can muster his torches and his pitchforks and call you a monster – but none of it matters. We can say whatever we want, but this one's on _you_."

Emma toes this precarious line between empathy and disconnection, and she can see the realisation as it dawns in Red's eyes. And the outrage.

"You think I _want_ to be a monster?" she asks, and Emma quirks an eyebrow, because, _yes_, that's the implication. "You think I would _choose_ that?"

The words rush past her lips, righteous anger that Emma should ever think it of her. And Emma is not surprised, because even if Red spent all day sulking and trying to convince everyone of the worst it her, hearing someone actually admit to believing it in any small way is something she is not prepared for. She asks in outrage, but she is not prepared for the answer she gets.

"No." Red glares and turns away, so Emma says it to her back, all in that quiet, tired tone, underlying steel, all perception and frustration. "But I think, no one ever really holds a wolf accountable for its actions," Emma explains. Red's head dips forwards, heavy, ever-burdened. Emma wonders if it's because she's spot on, or if it's just because she's giving some new way of thinking where the girl's affliction is concerned. Some new perception she's never had. "And a _wolf_ will never regret a hunt, will never feel guilt for its prey, for the way it lives."

Emma steps forward, away from the door, but no further. Red tenses, expecting an approach, a touch, a comforting hand to the shoulder. But it never comes. Emma doesn't want to play that game, and Red doesn't need it from her. She distances herself from that place, that moment of exposure, where she dredged up her past for a purpose Red probably doesn't entirely understand.

"I don't think you want to be a monster, Red," Emma says quietly, but now all the strength is gone. She's so tired of dealing with everyone else's magical, archaic problems. She isn't trying to convince anyone – she never really was. She is just stating a fact. "I think you just don't want to feel guilty any more."

There is a long silence, and Emma isn't entirely sure if it is because she is waiting for a response, or if it's just that she's waiting for an excuse to leave. Red doesn't look at her, though, even when the brunette finally gets her words in order.

"You're cruel, Emma," she says – whispers, almost, and she sounds angry. Good on her. "Granny wanted me to be Red, and my mom wanted me tobe the wolf. And Snow told me, 'why not be both? Why not toe the line?' and I was _fine with that_."

But now, here is Emma, standing behind her at the crossroads and saying it's her choice to make. Cruel. Red is lost, like Emma was, once, fresh out of prison, sick, with nowhere to go and every other avenue open to her. Red doesn't know what to do. Poor her.

"And where does _Ruby_ fit into the equation?" Emma whispers, more to herself than Red, another grain of salt to the wound. Ruby, the girl she knew first, the _friend_ she had _first_. Ruby, who was a shadow of what Red is now. A 'copy', somehow, but really, someone else entirely. She misses Ruby, like she misses Mary Margaret. James stood on a truck once and told everyone 'we are both', as if it were really so simple – and sometimes, truly, she looks at him and sees David Nolan, and his foolishness. But those times get fewer and farther in between, and the people who she knew, who meant the most to Emma, for the first time in _so many years_, turned into strangers with the same faces.

"What do you want me to do?" Red asks her, harsh, jerking around finally to look at her, to glare, and plead. Emma purses her lip. The time for coddling and direction and being guided along by the hand is long in the past. It needs to stop.

"Belle is going to offer you her living room for the night," she says stiffly, because it's already been discussed. Red's heard it already, super-sensitive hearing and all. "I'm going to track down a lead. Do what you _want_, Red."

It's grudging and accommodating and aloof all at the same time. She should get a damned medal for that. She doesn't bother to wait for one. She leaves.

/-\

Spencer is leaving his house when she arrives. She flashes the warrant in front of his face and he scowls at her, but leaves the door open.

"Go for it. I have things to do."

He hops in his car and drives off before Emma can mention that her warrant covers that too. Bastard. Emma can only think that he should have been angrier. He didn't seem the least bit worried, and she's fairly certain that she won't find anything on the premises. He's a psychotic moron, but she's pretty sure he's not actually that dumb.

She looks over the house quickly – half-asses it, really, but she knows, just _knows_, that there's nothing there to find. She pulls out her phone and dials Charming's number while she rifles through the files on Spencer's desk and scowls when it nearly rings out. James picks up at the last second. Neither of them are in the mood for conversation starters, apparently.

"Found anything?"

"Not so far," Emma tells him. "And I don't think I will. The son of a bitch left as soon as I got here. I need you to find his car. If we want evidence of anything, that's where we're gonna find it."

"How do you know?" James asks, and Emma thinks of Spencer's car, parked across the road from the diner that morning, and the stupid smug _presence_ that the slimy ex-king exudes, and her teeth grind a little before she replies.

"Just trust me," she says. "It'll be there."

There is a pause.

"We have another problem," James says eventually, and she only offers silence to prompt him. "Granny's hearing what seems to be an angry mob six blocks over."

"Well then." Emma drops the casework she's looking at and grabs at the car keys in her pocket. "Let's double time this thing, don't you think? Tell Belle to be on mob-watch. One hand on the phone at all times, please. And call me if you find the car first."

/-\

By happenstance, Emma finds the car before James does – though, only by minutes. He jogs around the corner with Granny just as Emma is getting out of the patrol car.

"Do we have a key?" the deputy asks, and Emma doesn't even look at him when she pulls the jigglers from her pocket and starts to screw around with the lock.

"Do we really need one?" she asks dryly.

It's not even ironic, really, that the sheriff should walk around with a set of lock-picking tools – just pathetic. She's spent her day telling Red to choose what she wants to be, as if the past doesn't matter, but eleven years hasn't made the feel of a pick between her fingers any less familiar, and she breaks into Albert Spencer's car with the weight of a warrant behind her, but the experience of a criminal decade moving her hands. Practice made perfect – before Storybrooke, and before this. And Emma can wear a badge, and work under the pretence of the same 'law' she used to work so very hard to undermine, but she breaks Spencer's trunk open and feels every bit the criminal she did eleven years before, clad in an orange jumpsuit and signing her son away across the table.

She scowls.

Her phone rings, even as David pushes past her, rooting through the trunk and unearthing the spare-tyre compartment. But there's no spare there at all – only a red cloak and a bloody axe, and Emma doesn't need super senses or a DNA test to know that it's Billy's blood, and the murder weapon. The scowl deepens, and she steps away and lets Charming and Granny speculate while she answers her cell. Belle's panicked tone tells her everything she needs to know.

"She got out."

There's a howl from somewhere else in the town that only backs that up.

"I'll be over there to let you free as soon as we've stopped the mob from killing Ruby," Emma tells her quickly, and hardly waits for the affirmative before hanging up. Granny bolts around the corner, crossbow in hand, following whatever scent she's got at her nose, and whatever sound is assailing her ears, and Emma follows, James at her heels in kind.

The mob beats them.

Albert Spencer has a gun in hand, and raised, and pointing at a form in the shadows, and there is _not enough time_. But Granny is quick on the trigger of her crossbow, and she knocks his aim off and somehow manages to blow something up across the alley. The explosion pauses the crowd, but Emma knows it won't stop them. That part is up to her, up to James, the sheriff and her deputy, the princess and her father. She doesn't care why it's up to them or who will be watching or how many faceless people she will undoubtedly piss off and alienate in the crowd tonight. She just wants it to be over, whatever way it ends.

Charming doesn't even have to nudge anyone out of the way. Emma shoves through the mob, leaves it jarred and parted in her wake – a clear path, straight to his fake father. And James isn't even given time to deal with _that_.

The old man has his gun drawn and raised again to the darkness, to the snarls in the shadows, the gold eyes peering out of the alleyway, obviously wanting to get his shot off before he can be further interrupted. Emma doesn't hesitate, though. Her gun leaves its holster, draws up level with the back of Albert Spencer's greyed head.

"Drop your weapon, or I put a bullet in your skull," she says, and it's cold, harsh. Here is the saviour, the sheriff. More than that, here is the girl underneath, sparing trust and unflinching loyalty to those who eventually earn it. She isn't pleading for him to stop, isn't begging him not to make her take his life. If anything, it seems she has no distinguishable qualms about it. He is a threat to her friend, to her family, and if he does not stop she will put him down with a clear conscience.

Does that make her any less _good_? Or does it just make her _different_?

"You think this crowd will let you stop me?" Spencer – George – asks, all haughty tone and full bravado. Same as ever. "She is a _monster_. And I am their _king_."

"Not _here_."

There is nothing but finality in her voice when she says it. No room for argument. And the old man stares at her with something in his eyes that says it hits him, just for a moment. He is not a king in this world – just a common man with a law degree that he's apparently forgotten in his quest for torches and pitchforks. And now, a killer. Emma does not understand these people and their delusions of grandeur, their birth rights, their kings and queens. Her world left their monarchies behind centuries ago – that is not the world they live in now. Not anymore.

"You all seem to have forgotten," she says loudly, making herself heard over the murmur of the crowd, James standing behind her as protection. "This is _not your world_." The crowd surges, and she hears it and feels it, but her eyes are locked on Spencer. She lifts her arm, lets the crack of a gunshot ring out, straight up in the air to have them falter again, trains the gun back on the old king when she gets the silence she's waiting for. Relative silence, anyway – Red yips and snarls somewhere back in the alley, but that's not the problem she's dealing with now. "This is my world. And since you all elected me, it's my _town_. I'm the _sheriff_. So you can play by _my rules_ or cart yourself across the border. Assuming I don't _shoot you_ first."

Her finger twitches on the trigger, and Spencer seems to realise how horribly serious she is. He lowers his weapon. James moves forward, pulling his handcuffs and dropping Red's cloak over Emma's outstretched arm.

"Albert Spencer," he says loudly, yanking the man's hands behind his back and clasping the steel cuffs tightly around his wrists. "I am hereby placing you under arrest for the murder of the mechanic, Billy. You have the right to remain silent – though considering the bloody axe in your car I don't think it will do you any favours…"

That's all that Emma really takes the time to listen to. As soon as Spencer is detained she holsters her gun and walks forward, further into the alley, into the dark. And then she stops, three metres away from glowing gold eyes, similarly cast in shadow. She holds Red's cloak idly in one hand, letting it drag on the ground, and makes no attempt to throw it out to Red, to whoever she is now. Granny has a crossbow trained their way, she knows, in case all else fails, but Emma knows they're not going to need it. Red goes home by choice tonight, or no one goes home at all. This is the ultimatum they've been given. Emma wonders if she's the only one who knows that.

"This is what you're here for, right?" she says, not too loud because Red doesn't need it. She can hear. She knows. Emma's not talking about the cloak twisted tightly between her fingers – she's talking about the standoff, the crowd, the torches and pitchforks, the loud anger. Somewhere beneath the instinct and the fear, she thinks Red understands. Somewhere beneath the fur and the fangs is the unhappy girl who _decided_ to come here tonight. "This is your choice. But I'm not living with it." The growling starts, some kind of attempt to ward and warn and intimidate. But Emma doesn't see just a wolf – she sees the guilty girl. Her friend, who she truly adores. Who needs that shock to her system to get it started again. "You want to be a monster, Red, you start with me."

"Emma!"

"_Mom_!"

Snow and Henry, somewhere behind her, nearer the crowd, listening in, horrified. She wonders when they got there. Waiting for the "I know you" that anyone else would give, the explanation of Spencer's crimes, and Ruby's better nature. Emma's not going to give any of that. She knows better.

Red spends all her time toeing the line between human and beast, girl and wolf. Worries too much about the basics to notice the guilt that fuses itself to her spine and drags her down into all the dark places. She pretends, every day, to be normal, to be okay with who she is. But she still hasn't decided _who_ that is just yet. And if she won't do it of her own accord, then Emma will make her. Somehow, she knows she's the only one who can.

"You owe me this much," Emma says, and there is no gentle tone to soothe the beast. Just the cold, the ice she remembers from her childhood. All the force she remembers from the first time she fought in school, all the provocation she gave when she was sixteen and stupid and she had her first run in with the cops. Red snarls at her and lurches a few steps out of the shadows, teeth bared, all the promise of pain, of following through. But Emma still only sees the wounded animal trying to warn her off, to cover the weakness, too prideful to turn its course but too caring to cut her down.

Emma doesn't falter. She's not the kind. It's about time Red makes her choice.

"Do it, Red."

"Emma!"

"_Kill me!_"

The growling cuts off with a whimper, the wolf flinches back as if struck, and still Emma doesn't move other than raising her hand to halt her family behind her. The wolf whimpers and snarls and paces in front of her, eyes locked on and never leaving, caught between moving forward and running back. Emma waits for a short time – ignores the noise behind her, the crowd, the burning torches. There are only golden eyes. There is only Red.

"Turn into what you fear most," she says eventually, quietly so only Red can hear, wolf senses and all. She gestures forward ever so slightly with the cloak in her hand. "Or turn _back_."

There is the hesitation, the contemplation, and finally, decision. The wolf moves forward, less of a stalk and more of a sad drag with every step, straight to Emma's side, to the red cloak in her hand. The growls have since petered out to huffs and whimpers. This is a shamed submission. Forfeit. This is Ruby, Red, the wolf that is a part of her. All she is at heart, as a whole. This is her first step. It's probably going to be her hardest. Emma doesn't move to cover the wolf until it tugs at the cloak at her side. And moments later it is Red kneeling next to her, beneath the crimson fabric, not her other form.

Red breathes out her name, but Emma halts whatever string she's trying to follow with a low "I didn't think so," and then that's it. That's all she wants it to be. That's all she can let it be now.

Then Henry is colliding with her, wrapping his vice-like arms around her waist, and she huffs at the impact. Snow goes to Red first, kneeling in front of her, hands on her shoulders, catching her gaze and checking that she's okay. There are muttered words before Granny makes her approach, taking Snow's place and allowing the younger woman to move her focus onto the blonde. Her hug strangles, and Emma's entirely certain it's on purpose. Even if she wasn't, the "put yourself in a situation like that again and I will skin you alive, you gave me a freaking heart attack," that Snow whispers in her ear kind of solidifies the notion.

And if she grips Snow just as tightly back and chokes back her own fears before they pass her lips, then that's okay. No one has to know.


End file.
